Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 05 (1928-11).djvu/95

(Upload an image to replace this placeholder.)

"He expected to see some gigantic offensive that would disarm them both."

"Say, what was that, Bill?" exclaimed the taller and thinner of the two men staring at the thick bush that for some way lined each side of the dusty lane.

"Hanged if I know, Joe—thunderbolt, maybe," replied his companion, eyeing blankly the dense scrub.

"Thunderbolt! But there ain't no clouds," objected Joe, turning his gaze to the evening sky. "Least nothing to speak of," he amended his assertion as he solemnly surveyed a few dwindling remnants of what an hour ago had been a mass of gray vapor that all day had veiled the glare and tempered the scorching rays of a July sun.

Though there had been a promise of rain in the low-lying shroud, yet toward evening it had thinned and rapidly dispersed, so that shortly only a few wisps flushed with the setting sun were left. Most certainly the mighty Thor stored no shaft of his in such flimsy housing. Yet something—they had no idea what—from out the nowhere had suddenly plunged through the bush with a frightful crash. Close beside them, apparently not a dozen paces from the lane, it had entered the fringing wood with terrific force and its short transit from the topmost boughs to the ground was but a rending smash of splintered wood punctuated by the dull impact that wound up its volcanic career.

"Well, if it ain't a thunderbolt, what is it?" queried Bill. "It come